Microsoft is "aware" that Xbox Live and Xbox.com are currently unavailable for a large number of users, the company has stated.

Eurogamer readers got in touch to say they were having issues this morning. As of this moment, Xbox Live and portions of Xbox.com are down."We're aware that some users may be experiencing difficulty logging in to Xbox LIVE at present," a Microsoft spokesperson told Eurogamer."This does happen from time to time while updates and fixes are made to the system and should not be symptomatic of any larger problems."A message on Microsoft's Xbox Live Status support site said the company was "working on the issue"."We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience," the message added.

Xbox Live has been down most of this morning. And gamers are not at all happy.It doesn’t help, of course, that today’s the day that the second piece of DLC for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, called Hearthfire, is out now. But despite no sign of a reprieve Microsoft tells MCV that everything’s going to be OK.“Nothing’s been flagged to us on the Xbox Live service, but we are reporting some minor issues to the service via Xbox.com,” a spokesperson stated. “This does happen from time to time what with regular updates and fixes to the system and should not be anything to worry about.”However, MCV readers are less than convinced by the explanation.After Tweeting earlier that all will soon be OK, one reader contacted MCV with the following:“Cannot get online via console, app or Xbox.com Last night me and my friends received friends requests from loads of accounts with 0GS [zero GamerScore, suggesting a new/fake account]. Not just friends people we were playing against also relieved these requests.”Of course, MCV cannot verify the truth of these claims and Microsoft is certainly not budging, but one thing we can say for certain is that the longer the blackout remains, the louder the calls of foul play will become.UPDATE: The same reader has contacted MCV again to say that he has now managed to log in to Xbox Live, but is facing further problems."I have got into my account BUT it said I was last logged into another console. Cannot gain access to my account management. So cannot see if MS points have been spent or not...bank account is fine though. Error message on console when trying to access 807B01F4"UPDATE 2: There are now widepsread reports of users being able to log back into Xbox Live without any problem. Hopefully that is the end of the issue.UPDATE 3: Other users are also reporting the 807B01F4 when trying to access account settings:

"Sorry, we’ve got a problem. For a little while, please stop trying to sign in to Xbox so we can fix it."

To be fair I'm getting pretty sick of the poor service from microsoft and the lack of decent content for loyal gold members, the fact that they push shovel-ware adverts all over the dashboard is really winding me up lately as well.

Restart my internet? Cant do that, but the 360 has been restarted numerous times over the last few hours which is what is when it started (5pm UK time so over 4 hours now) Friends all have the same issue.

Restart my internet? Cant do that, but the 360 has been restarted numerous times over the last few hours which is what is when it started (5pm UK time so over 4 hours now) Friends all have the same issue.

Restarting the internet I meant by restarting all the internet devices, my apologies. On your router do you have ports that need to be enabled to connect to Xbox Live? If so, make sure they are still opened. Strange your not able to access either as the service is running perfectly fine.

If you have a twitter, I would contact @XboxSupport and ask them for a little bit more assistance. They are very good and respond quickly.

Router was reset an hour or so ago after a power outage here (nothing to do with live though ) As mentioned a few friends are having the same issues. It would appear to be an issue at their end (Microsoft) as the message states

Unavailable

Sorry, we’ve got a problem. For a little while, please stop trying to sign in to Xbox so we can fix it.

Most of Xbox.com still works, and we’ll fix this as soon as possible.

Message is copied direct from xbox.com after signing in with live account. Its been nearly 5 hours at least for me, friends say it started about 3pm so its actually nearly 7 hours.